


IN MEMORIAM OBLITORUM

by wajjs



Series: Across The Universe (vld fics) [28]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Original Universe, Prose Poem, Rift God, Song of Heroes Zine, Voltron, Zine, more like the always sexy rifty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 16:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wajjs/pseuds/wajjs
Summary: “We have a story,” Regris' lips were now numb with the weight of past lives begging for a glimpse of existence, “if you’re willing to listen…”(Part 3 of a chronological series of stories based around the same universe created for the Song of Heroes fanzine)





	IN MEMORIAM OBLITORUM

**Author's Note:**

> The style of this story was 100% inspired by the way stories like The Iliad and The Odyssey are often translated. And when I say "inspired", I mean I consulted my editions a number of times while writing this just so that I could nail the overall tone I wanted to achieve XD
> 
> HUGE thank you to my friend Cerulean for helping me with the title, latin cases are my nightmare to this day
> 
> (This is a slightly longer version of the same story that's part of the zine!)

###  ** IN MEMORIAM OBLITORUM **

• _IN MEMORY OF THE FORGOTTEN_ •

Once sheltered from the storm by the natural cover of a small cave they had found, the group of weathered, hardened by time and pain warriors began the practiced process of starting a small fire, counting their injuries and tending to the sick. If the storm hadn’t started quite so soon, they would’ve kept going through the night, their biology letting them stay awake and fully functional for long periods of time.

Regris, one of their youngest members, born when afternoons were too long and nights too short, when time seemed to laugh in their mere presence, sat next to the fire directly on the floor. He flicked his tail carefully, entertaining himself easily with the way it casted shadows on the cave’s wall. It reminded him of the way his parent’s arms would sway when he was held in their safety, when he was so much younger and smaller than his current form. The elders would sometimes pass by him and offer him things to make himself comfortable, knowing that his energy needed to be preserved for when the time came that his youth might be useful. Regris knew better than to give in and accept: Kolivan would always say that the strongest of characters often were born from necessity and restraint… though whenever he pronounced those words, Antok, Kolivan’s fierce protector, would laugh heartily in a way Regris sometimes believed no one in their group had ever been able to.

“Restraint is what we did not have,” he’d say, and Kolivan would send his way a deadly glare without missing a beat of the well-known dance, one that Regris still didn’t get but had no hurry to understand.

With a sigh the memory quickly vanished and the chill coming from outside made him bring his knees to his chest: that’s a lesson Ulaz, the clever, had taught him countless movements ago, to make himself smaller so that less of his body heat escaped. The eyes of the outsider, of the traveler with a path similar to their current one, found him from the other side of the flames, skin tone flickering from pale yellow to orange to light gray.  _ Are they soaking up the light? _ , Regris thought, remembering old tales the elders passed on to newer generations, tales of beings he’s never seen and creatures too mighty for him to comprehend.

“Seems like after this storm passes, our paths will unwind,” the stranger spoke, inching closer to the fire, “you’re going to the Dilaw Plains. That’s a long way from here, and a treacherous road. Is there anything you’re looking for there?”

Regris looked to the side, unsure of how to answer, still stumbling in matters related to how little information about themselves they can share. Kolivan stood there, right in his field of vision, and with just one look Regris understood. Might be a stranger, but a stranger that knows the history of ones without memories is a stranger that carries on their existence through retellings of their tales. Thace had said this was his role: to keep them all alive, to keep them all in the remembrance of the ones to come. The notion implanted a deep sadness in his heart.

“We travel to each and every direction the wind takes us,” with a shudder, his tail wrapped tightly around him now, Regris focused his gaze on the dancing flames. If he were to try hard enough, he could swear that in the oranges and yellows there were figures of the past writhing in the life given by the words. “We are nomads.”

“That must be tiring on the soul,” they said, solemn. “I can’t fathom a reason strong enough to cast someone into that style of life.”

“We have a story,” Regris' lips were now numb with the weight of past lives begging for a glimpse of existence, “if you’re willing to listen…”

•

We see what we wish to see, that is known as a truth through the changes faced.

From where we stood, the vision seemed clear: all around us was fog. 

Hear me now, while the bonfire rejoices us; hear me now, and may stars guide me, may stars aid my memory and tongue.

Hear me now, and learn our story: this is what we saw:

Stars and sparks, tell them the story of how golden promises tainted minds, bodies and spirits; let them know how they fell for the sweet lullaby of a greater good and the firm security of an oath: let them know how their eyes were promptly unveiled and mist was all around.

It is true that many have fallen prisoner to ill-advised vows and pledges. Amongst them, those who the stars now guide as witnesses are the unlucky ones to be part of the sum.

Lured in by honor and duty, they sought Zarkon, leader to all galras and related beings, and joined his ranks, pledging loyalty. Upon their temples promises of rightfulness were given, and they blindly believed in the spoken words.

Great they proved to be, prudent and efficient: they were graced with high esteem from those around them, and the path looked clear. Nothing but fools they were, playing into the leader’s wise hands, adding to his power: because for each blessing came a curse: those who believed themselves favored by grace were the bane of the doomed, true to both sides of a portal.

“ _ We are each other’s damned. We carry our blessings like curses for outsiders: it is the song of swirling stars. _ ”

Like slow fire it started and soon they were burnt: for every promise Zarkon made, despair would follow in a howling wake. As warriors they were born knowing there never are no losses, so they looked upon the pain and never faltered in their stride: this is the natural order of things, they thought. Stars made it known, once the muddy fog cleared to silken mist: the eyes of the warriors’ leader had been blind, and thus the rest followed in plight.

Discontent grew, but they didn't dare to speak: they bowed their heads and carried on with their missions, tainting the soil with irrecuperable life. Soon sweetness turned to bitterness, to acidic aftertaste in the back of the tongue: promises that had been nothing but air were now seizing their lungs. Villages burned under Zarkon's legions, innocents never seeing tomorrow, dissidents losing all freedom: soon they learnt there is no glory to be found in bloodshed, soon they learnt that their minds won't ever forgive their hands for the pain caused. Their souls were rioting: will they abide to the ruthless follower of an unforgiving god? A follower lost so deep within the powerful potentials, that with each breath another life is snuffed out?

The warriors’ leader, Kolivan, turned to those under his care and provided security, protection, unwavering stability in the middle of a storm. Years after first joining Zarkon’s forces and fighting in His name, the harshness of what their own hands had brought upon their very own kind, upon the helpless, upon every being that ever dared to stand on the opposite side for reasons as valuable as their own; the harshness of what they’ve done is a weight heavy and mighty upon their heads that skyward had always stayed.

And thus the warriors’ leader spoke:

“The one we pledged loyalty to is no longer,” his tone somber and hunted by shadows, his eyes turned to the impenetrable horizon before letting his amber gaze fall upon them, “an end must be found. A finishing line we need to cross. It won’t be an easy task nor a path that will lead us to peace: we’ll cercenate the ties that bind us to the blood-thirsty head and thus create our own entity, and for that we will encounter many unavoidable fights along the way. Those who wish to stay in the relative safety provided by the sheer number of Zarkon’s legions, you won’t be judged. Those who wish to join me, let it be known that we are likely to be outcasts for our own, even though we are doing this to honor our predecessors and those who are yet to come.”

They didn’t pretend or even believe for a fraction of a second that they had the moral high ground, or that they were the illuminated ones. Rather, they moved further and further away from the light and deeper into the shadows, knowing that within them they would find a place to stay hidden from Zarkon’s wrath: no one who had crossed him ever lived to see a new day grace the land.

They had met their limit head on (and how disheartening it still is that it had taken them so long to find it, that it was only after they were fully submerged in the decay of their mistakes that they realized what they had done), and now they were ready to give a good fight. None of the warriors had chosen to leave Kolivan’s side, none of them wanted to return to a life of misery brought by their own hands. The nightmares still licked at their heels and grasped the back of their necks, after all: nightmares fueled by how Zarkon kept twisting events and memories in his favour, kept taking away the truth, trampling down on the defeated. His hands only brought destruction and the laurels on their heads had grown into bushes, preventing them from seeing how around them the youth succumbed.

When the equinox came and in the sweltering heat they forged new blades, they proceeded to rise against Zarkon, leader to all galras and related beings, and thus became the first and last ones to challenge those legions that ruled the land. Kolivan, the warriors’ leader, gave all that was left to give of his heart.

At his side stood Antok, tall and strong like no other warrior ever was. He came from a lineage that had always been questioned under Zarkon’s tyrannical realm: offspring of a parent from a different race, that had always been a reason to impose judgement on bowed heads. Antok had refused to let that be his defining trait: high his head he held, defiance clear in the energic embers of his eyes. Such attitude secured his place as Kolivan's right hand, and amongst the warriors, their bond was the strongest of all.

Following closely were Thace, the cunning threat, and Ulaz, the guiding light. Upon their shoulders laid their joint task, to slither and hide, to convince and lie: into Zarkon's legions they weren't afraid to carry on their deceitful acts, bringing to Kolivan the information needed to strike. Ulaz moved when night claimed the minds; Thace showed his expertise in plain sight. Both were well known warriors, famous for their unwavering spirit and for their clever minds. Unlike Antok, no one ever doubted their right to be part of the Galra clan.

Krolia, the relentless, wasn’t one to be forgotten, for her dexterity brought an unstoppable force that carried the warriors’ backs. Someone to be respected and feared, someone who met Kolivan head to head and never feared or backed down: worthy of admiration for her expertise and her stubbornly kind mind, under a tyrannical rule she'd had to tamper down her might.

But many brave soldiers were lost in the rebellion fight: the loss was big in both sides. Though Zarkon's legions kept moving on, swallowing the charred soil with the bulk of their mass; they kept advancing upon the bodies and the cracks of the warriors’ masks. Coal was what met the eyes: in that wasteland Kolivan for stones lost his heart. It was an unmatched fight, the difference in the balance brought forwards by numbers. In thick and mocking rivulets his blood dripped into and well past his eye, but the cross of his shame came in the fact that Zarkon hadn't shown his face in answer to this rise in arms. In his stead, Sendak rose, ready to shine: now on his sword Kolivan's blood continued to dry. All night long they had been each other's match: Sendak's own gore sullied Kolivan's hands.

Sendak tauntingly laughed and stood tall, behind him a hill of broken bodies and charcoal land. He spoke his message:

“Give up now and stop this fight. You're a valuable asset for the Empire: if you come with me, Zarkon might be persuaded to be lenient on what's left of your warriors and pride. You can see how they die, see how they fall! Of your forces you’ve lost more than half, while mine can keep going all night and dawn.”

Kolivan's answer was the sealing of fate kind; he wiped the blood from his brow with the back of his hand, blade at the ready for a next attack:

“If you were to aim for severing my head you might have a better chance. I am not returning to become a mad emperor’s pawn.”

Thus Sendak snarled:

“You seek freedom? My blade will give you so in the form of your demise!”

The battle continued, the warriors refused to back down: either dead or free, but never again Zarkon's to command. They would've left all of their souls if Thace hadn't come in with a warning at the right time: a trap was about to be set into motion, and if they didn’t escape quickly, they were never to leave the legions that red soiled the land. A choice had to be made, and Kolivan dealt one final blow, allowing all of his rage and determination to course through his extremities. No one should ever believe they didn’t give their all during those fateful encounters. Shadows they reclaimed, having left their mark of insurgency and rebellion, of discontent and fearlessness: mark that would live and breathe, would grow in power to never again be tossed into forced silence. For those to come and for those with doubts, they’ve left their mark of freedom: time will tell if the ones to come would rise to the cry of liberation.

Clouds and smoke hid their retreat that wasn’t one of defeat, though in their hurried steps Kolivan’s right side was suddenly full of space, empty support. He attempted to turn in his search, sure that not too far behind he’d find what’s missing, when Ulaz, the guiding light, prompted him to move forward: once they were all regrouped, they’d be able to confront whatever reality was laid at their feet. That’s how not without pain they lost track of two of their most valuable warriors: Antok, the mighty, and Krolia, the relentless. It was unclear if they had fallen during the skirmish, only that they were no longer by their side. The pain that casted over the injured and bruised warriors’ forms was undeniable, and a promise to never forget the names of those feeding the thirsty ground with their liquid life, the names of those left behind.

_ “Noxt,” Regris murmured, drawing circles and interconnecting lines on the dirt with his fingertip, “Bosib’ar. Koxe.” _

_ The stranger eyed the odd figures once and nodded. “Those were the names?” _

_ “Some of them.” _

The warriors waited, then, in the shadows and in the safety of what others deemed unsafe. They moved constantly, though never unwisely, always leaving along their way clues for those that would eventually return to the group: a code, a signal of hope, a plea for a safe return. Fortunate was their moving, for they found a trail to Antok’s site: taken as a slave he had been, misfortune and misery thrown over his head. In chains they found him, with blood on his teeth and face marked by scars — blessed, still, for he was alive. One by one the lost warriors were found, some reshaped, some the same, most of them with an intact will; one by one, but among the found the remaining lost were a sharp thorn: Krolia seemed to be perpetually gone.

Needing to properly tend to their needs and what’s left of their beings, they went after the circular path towards Zarkon’s greatest foe, the alteans. With distance they had noticed that each faction responded to forces greater than their lives, greater than time: for Zarkon had devoted himself to an unfathomable being, the Rift Deity, and the alteans bowed their platitudes to the Voltron God. It became clear to them, once the knowledge graced their thoughts, that the once great Zarkon, leader to all galras and related beings, had succumbed into the shapeless eternity of a forever hungry void. Once he had fallen for the Rift, his descent into madness had been unstoppable. His empress accompanied him in the decline, and with them all of the realm to its knees caved.

The alteans stood as paragons of its fundamental opposition, Rift and Voltron both drops of the same ancient forces, two beings born from energy, creation, chaos, entropy. They saw Zarkon’s lost sense of self and turned their prayers to Voltron, and the warriors thought they were the ones to be followed, the ones leading by example the way to salvation. From experience they should’ve known that trust in devoted rulers would always lead to inevitable decay, they should’ve realized before the pain, before the humiliation, that nothing good was to come from an attempted contact.

For the alteans were full of pride and shunned the strangers that their magical traces had followed to their sacred lands. They claimed:

“You are tainted, tainted by the mistakes dripping from your hands: see how the soil rots under your feet, see how the lights hide as you arrive. Sullied by the one we do not speak of, sullied by its cruel ways, under Voltron’s light you are shadows, resenting the brightness, resenting the shine. What good can you bring us, what certainty that traps don’t await with your interruption in our lives? Go. You’ll never be welcome here.”

Shunned by ones and despised by others, the warriors recoiled within themselves and bowed to set things right. A name to give themselves they chose: the Blade, for their bloody weapons, of Marmora, for their lost comrades. Kolivan looked at the weary faces of the ones who had now officially become his family and proclaimed:

“Knowledge is hope.”

_ “Gods?” the stranger’s scepticism was too palpable, almost hurtful. _

_ Regris paid it no mind. _

Tried as they might, unable they were to stop the unstoppable demise of the land: from the shadows they acted and fires they reached to mitigate; in the large scale of things, little it all meant when all other galras and all of the alteans to destruction rushed, following fate’s powerful dictate. Impossibles became unthinkable realities right before their eyes: the ground split and cracked, the skies revolted and made all structures collapse. Penitence for all of the beings’ conjoined mistakes: the all-powerful beings fought, blow for blow, crying heart to a wounded one. Not even shadows were left unscathed, and forced to exile the warriors were, for there was no other form to escape. Their dead were left behind along with the places housing their memories; as long as they were alive through their stories they’d get to survive. True death meant omission, true death meant forgetfulness. Neither the alteans or the galras might ever remember the warriors of the Blade of Marmora, but they would memorialize in their stead.

The warriors’ exodus was as tragic as it was forced, homeland and all that was known being left at their backs. Hated by many, feared by others, pariahs to all, they knew then that their walking would have no end: to travel what’s left of the lands was their fate, with no home to return to but with lost comrades to keep alive.

•

“Is that why you’ve told me this story?”

And Kolivan replied: “Knowledge is what lets all of us thrive.”


End file.
